"Okay, sucker," I thought. "You"ve been warned." If he came along he"d d.a.m.n well go in the hold. I could cut the drives after we got clear of Mars and dump him out--after removing his money, of course. "Well," I said aloud, "it"s your funeral."
"You"re always saying that," he said with chuckle in his voice.
We checked out at the airlock and drove out to the s.p.a.ceport over the sand-filled roadbed that no amount of work ever kept clean. We cleared the port office, drew s.p.a.cesuits from Post Supply, and went out to my yacht. Redman looked at her, his heart in his eyes. He seemed overwhelmed by it.
"Lord! she"s beautiful!" he breathed, as he looked at the slim polished length standing on her broad fins, nose pointed skyward.
"Just a Starflite-cla.s.s yacht," I said.
"Look, Cyril," he said. "Will you sell her?"
"If we get to Venus alive and you still want to buy her, she"ll cost you--" I hesitated, "twenty-five thousand."
"Done!" he said. It came so fast that I figured I should have asked for fifty.
"The fuel will be extra," I said. "Fifty munits an ounce. There"s maybe ten pounds of it."
"How far will that take me?"
"About ten light-years at cruising speed. Gold is economical."
"That should be far enough," he said with a faint smile.
We drew the boarding ladder down and prepared to squeeze aboard. As I figured it, we had plenty of time, but I hadn"t counted on that nosy guard at the check station, or maybe that character at the south airlock of the dome, because I was barely halfway up the ladder to the hatch when I heard the howl of a racing turbine and two headlights came cutting through the night over the nearest dune. The speed with which that car was coming argued no good.
"Let"s go," I said, making with the feet.
"I"m right behind you," Redman said into my left heel. "Hurry! Those guys are out for blood!"
I tumbled through the lock and wiggled up the narrow pa.s.sageway. By some contortionist"s trick Redman came through the hatch feet first, an odd looking gun in his hand. Below us the turbo screeched to a stop and men boiled out, blasters in hand. They didn"t wait--just started firing. Electrostatic discharges leaped from the metal of the ship, but they were in too much of a hurry. The gun in Redman"s fist steadied as he took careful aim. A tiny red streak hissed out of the muzzle--and the roof fell in! A thunderous explosion and an eye-wrenching burst of light filled the pa.s.sageway through the slit in the rapidly closing hatch. The yacht rocked on her base like a tree in a gale, as the hatch slammed shut.
"What in h.e.l.l was _that_?" I yelped.
"Just a low yield nuclear blast," Redman said. "About two tons. Those lads won"t bother us any more."
"You fool!--you stupid moronic abysmal fool!" I said dully. "You"re not content to get Abie on our heels. Now you"ve triggered off the whole Galactic Patrol. Don"t you know that nuclear weapons are banned--that they"ve been banned ever since our ancestors destroyed Earth--that their use calls for the execution of the user? Just where do you come from that you don"t know the facts of life?"
"Earth," Redman said.
It left me numb. Any fool knew that there was no life on that radioactive h.e.l.l. Even now, s.p.a.cers could see her Van Allen bands burning with blue-green fire. Earth was a sterile world--a horrible example, the only forbidden planet in the entire galaxy, a galactic chamber of horrors ringed with automatic beacons and patrol ships to warn strangers off. We Martians, Earth"s nearest neighbor, had the whole history of that last suicidal war drummed into us as children.
After all, we _were_ the cradle of Galactic civilization even though we got that way by being driven off Earth--and feeling that almost any place would be better than Mars. Mars iron built the ships and powered the atomics that had conquered the galaxy. But we knew Earth better than most, and to hear those words from Redman"s lips was a shock.
"You"re a d.a.m.n liar!" I exploded.
"You"re ent.i.tled to your opinion," Redman said, "but you should know the truth when it is told to you. I _am_ from Earth!"
"But--" I said.
"You"d better get out of here," Redman said, "your Patrol will be here shortly."
I was thinking that, too. So I wiggled my way up to the control room, braced myself against the walls and fired the jets. Acceleration crushed me flat as the ship lifted and bored out into s.p.a.ce.
As quickly as I could, I cut the jets so the Patrol couldn"t trace us by our ion trail, flipped the negative inertia generator on and gave the ship one minimal blast that hurled her out of sight. We coasted at a few thousand miles per second along the plane of the ecliptic while we took stock.
Redman had wedged himself halfway into the control room and eyed my cramped body curiously. "It"s a good thing you"re a runt," he said.
"Otherwise we"d be stuck down there." He laughed. "You look like a jack in the box--all coiled up ready to spring out."
But I was in no mood for humor. Somehow I felt that I"d been conned.
"What do I get out of this?" I demanded.
"A whole skin--at least for awhile."
"That won"t do me any good unless I can take it somewhere."
"Don"t worry," Redman said. "They don"t give a d.a.m.n about you. It"s me they want, turn on your radio and see."
I flipped the switch and a voice came into the control room--"remind you that this is a Galactic emergency! The Patrol has announced that an inhabitant of Earth has been on Mars! This individual is dangerously radioactive. A reward of one hundred thousand Galactic munits will be paid to the person who gives information leading to his death or capture. I repeat,--_one hundred thousand munits_! The man"s description is as follows: Height 180 centimeters, weight 92 kilograms, eyes reddish brown, hair red. A peculiarity which makes him easily recognized is the red color of his skin. He is armed with a nuclear weapon and is dangerous. When last seen he was leaving Marsport s.p.a.cefield. Starflite cla.s.s yacht, registration number CY 127439. He has a citizen with him, probably a hostage. If seen, notify the nearest Patrol ship."
I looked at Redman. The greed must have shone from me like a beacon.
"A hundred grand!" I said softly.
"Try and collect," Redman said.
"I"m not going to," I said and turned three separate plans to capture him over in my head.
"They won"t work," Redman said. He grinned nastily. "And don"t worry about radioactivity. I"m no more contaminated than you are."
"Yeah?--and just how do you live on that hotbox without being contaminated?" I asked.
"Simple. The surface isn"t too hot in the first place. Most of the stuff is in the Van Allen belts. Second, we live underground. And third we"re protected."
"How?"
"Where do you think this red skin comes from? It isn"t natural. Even you should know that. Actually we had the answer to protection during the Crazy Years before the blowup when everybody talked peace and built missiles. A bacteriologist named Anderson discovered it while working with radiation sterilized food. He isolated a whole family of bacteria from the food that not only survived, but lived normally in the presence of heavy doses of radiation. The microbes all had one thing in common--a peculiar reddish pigment that protected them.
"Luckily, the military of his nation--the United States, I think they called it, thought that this pigment might be a useful protective shield for supplies. Extracts were made and tested before the Blowup came, and there was quite a bit of it on hand.
"But the real hero of protection was a general named Ardleigh. He ordered every man and woman in his command inoculated with the extract right after the Blowup--when communications were disorganized and commanders of isolated units had unchallengeable power. He was later found to be insane, but his crazy idea was right. The inoculations killed ten per cent of his command and turned those who lived a bright red, but none of the living showed a sign of radiation sickness after they received the extract.
"By this time your ancestors--the Runners--had gone, and those who stayed were too busy trying to remain alive to worry much about them.
The "Double A" vaccine--named for Anderson and Ardleigh--was given to every person and animal that could be reached, but it was only a small fraction of the population that survived. The others died. But enough men and animals remained to get a toe-hold on their ruined world, and they slowly rebuilt.